Matthew 24:29Immediately after the tribulation of those days: 'The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.'

Job 5:14They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.

Isaiah 13:10For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened when it rises, and the moon will not give its light.

Isaiah 59:9Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness, for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

Isaiah 59:10Like the blind, we feel our way along the wall, groping like those without eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead.

Jeremiah 13:16Give glory to the LORD your God before He brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the dusky mountains. You wait for light, but He turns it into deep gloom and thick darkness.

Jeremiah 15:9The mother of seven will grow faint; she will breath her last breath. Her sun will set while it was still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. And the rest I will put to the sword in the presence of their enemies," declares the LORD.

Ezekiel 32:7When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.

Amos 4:13For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and reveals His thoughts to man, the One who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth, the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name."

Amos 5:8He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth--the LORD is His name--

Micah 3:6Therefore the night will come over you without visions, and the darkness without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them.

Zechariah 14:7It will be a day known only to the LORD, without day or night; but when evening comes, there will be light.

Treasury of Scripture

And it shall come to pass in that day, said the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

that I.

Amos 4:13 For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.

Amos 5:8Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:

Job 5:14 They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night.

and I.

Exodus 10:21-23 And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt…

Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

Mark 15:33 And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

(9) Darken the earth.--The darkening of the sun at noon-day gives an image of confusion and terror (comp. Amos 5:20). The eclipse of the sun that is here alluded to (see Excursus C), like the earthquake in the preceding verse, is employed as a powerful image of national calamity, the extinction of the royal house, and perhaps the final overthrow of Israel. (Comp. Jeremiah 15:9; Ezekiel 32:7-10.)

EXCURSUS C (Amos 8:9).

That an eclipse is here referred to, and employed as a figure to express the overwhelming calamities which were to darken Israel, can hardly admit of doubt, when we compare the similar figurative use of the earthquake in the preceding verse. But to what eclipse does the prophet refer? Mr. J. W. Bosanquet has attempted to identify it with a very special one, mentioned in the Assyrian annals:--"In the eponymy of Bursagale, prefect of Gozan, the city of Asshur revolted, and in the month Sivan the sun was eclipsed." This has been calculated by Hind to have occurred on June 15, 763 B.C. (So Rawlinson, Schrader, G. Smith, &c., as against Oppert's view, which is untenable.) If this eclipse was in the mind of the prophet, it is a fact of considerable importance in chronology. On the whole, however, it is more probable that the prophet was thinking of an earlier eclipse, which took place in 784 B.C., Feb. 9. It was a total eclipse, the time of totality being about 1 p.m. at Jerusalem, thus exactly corresponding with the phraseology of this verse. So remarkable a phenomenon would naturally stamp itself for many years upon the mind of the people, and this vivid impression the prophet summons to his aid in foreshadowing the calamities of the last time.

Verse 9. - I will cause the sun to go down at noon. This is probably to be taken metaphorically of a sudden calamity occurring in the very height of seeming prosperity, such as the fate of Israel in Pekah's time, and Pekah's own murder (2 Kings 15:29, 30; see also 2 Kings 17:1-6). A like metaphor is common enough; e.g.Joel 2:2: 3:15; Micah 3:6; Job 5:14; Isaiah 13:10; Jeremiah 15:9. Hind calculates that there were two solar eclipses visible in Palestine in Amos's time, viz. June 15, B.C. 763, and February 9, B.C. 784. Some have suggested that the prophet here predicts the latter in the year of Jeroboam's death; but this, it is discovered, would have been so partial as hardly to be noticeable at Samaria. And it is improbable that such natural phenomena, unconnected with God's moral government, should be the subject of the prophet's prediction (Pusey). Doubtless a sudden reverse is signified (comp. Matthew 24:29, etc.), expressed in terms rendered particularly appropriate by some late and well remembered eclipse. The Fathers note here how the earth was darkened at the Passion of our Lord.